ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com

Poetic Profile

George Kalamaras  

General Questions

1) Where did you grow up? Was poetry and writing part of that mix?

I was born in Chicago and grew up 45 minutes from there, in Cedar Lake, a small town in “the region” in Indiana.  I’ve always written, from the time I was nine years old.  I wrote my first poem, I believe, when I was 12.

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2) Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other things that inform your work?

The poets who have influenced me the most are non-U.S. poets, many from the Surrealist tradition of the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s.  Let me start with the Greeks, many of whom embraced Surrealism at one time in their lives: Andreas Embiricos, Odysseus Elytis, Nikos Gatsos, Yannis Ritsos, George Seferis, Takis Sinopoulos, and others.  Then there are the poets of Spain and Latin America, who have been perhaps some of the most vital poets in my development as a writer: Ceasar Vallejo, Miguel Hernandez, Federico Garcia Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Pablo Neruda, Luis Cernuda, and Octavio Paz, among others.  I’ve also a strong interest in Japanese Modernism, particularly Dada and Surrealism of the 1920’s and 1930’s: Takahashi Shinkichi, Takiguchi Shuzo, Yoshioka Minoru, Nishiwaki Junzaburo, and Miyazawa Kenji are some of my favorites.  Also significant to me, though coming much earlier, are the poets of the Chinese T’ang Dynasty to whom I referred earlier, especially Wang Wei, Tu Fu, Li Po, Li Ho, and Meng Chiao.  Of the French, I mostly read Robert Desnos, Andre Breton, and Rene Daumal

3) When did you 'become' a poet, when did poet become part of your everyday life? 

I think I’ve always been a poet, in my mind, but I made a deep commitment to it around age 20.

4) Where were you educated? Was this important?

I received my undergraduate degree from Indiana University, in Bloomington, my Master’s from Colorado State University, and my doctorate from SUNY-Albany.  Yes—all very important, each in its own way.

5) What is your favorite food?

I don’t know . . . pizza?  I’m a vegetarian, so I eat a lot of vegetables; I like most anything green, especially adoring kale.

6) Sports Team? or Activity?

The Chicago White Sox!  Even through their decades of losing.

7) Vacation spot?

Anywhere in the West, especially Colorado, where my wife and I used to live.

8) Curse word? If it counts as one, poop

My answer would be “none,” actually, though I do use them, and far too often, I would suspect.  However, I find that I turn to these when I’m least centered and not grounded in my true self.

Craft Questions

 

1) How do you form a poem?

I walk in the door of language rather than meaning.

 

2) Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?

 Organic.

3) Where do you write? Is Ambiance important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write? 

I normally write poetry in long-hand first, and then I bring it over into type.

I can write just about anywhere, in my notebooks that way.  I need quiet normally, though.

4) In the balance between found language and created language where does your work fall?

I don’t think there is anyway a write can tell.  Everything we create, I believe is, in a sense, “found.”  I remember William Stafford saying here’s ago that the voice he hears in his poems in the voice of his “mother,” not the voice of T.S. Eliot.